The addition of pretense can be a killer in a film. It is precisely the lack of such a quality that makes Alfred Hitchcock’s two and a quarter hour long 1959 color thriller North By Northwest a better and more enjoyable film than his preceding film, Vertigo, even if the film comes nowhere near the excellence of his following film, Psycho. Whereas the two films that end in –o attempt to impose a deeper psychology into their screenplays, North By Northwest is a popcorn eater's gala, pre-James Bondian Cold War thriller. It’s no wonder the film was a popular smash while Vertigo was a financial flop.
On a strictly logical level, little of the film makes much sense, but it’s Hitchcock, after all. As example, what is contained on the microfilm that is the film’s MacGuffin, inside the statuette, is meaningless and beside the point—which is action and thrills. That there is no logical reason for Cary Grant’s character, Roger Thornhill—another Hitchcockian wrongly accused man—a Madison Avenue advertising executive, to be mistaken for the non-existent spy George Kaplan, is another problem. Yet, even though it is done in a rather unconvincing fashion—Thornhill summons a hotel attendant who is paging Kaplan, and the chase is on—few people will debate cause and effect in a film like this.
The dopey bad guys see this brief moment and assume everything—a perfect example of the dumbest possible action propelling the plot, which is usually an artistic killer. However, on the plus side, this is one of Cary Grant’s best and Cary Grantiest roles. He is charming, delightful, suave, and the fact that he never seems to get a hair out of place in assorted acts of derring-do, even when chased and dusted by that crop duster, in one of the film’s most famed scenes, is not a problem, unless one just cannot let the formula silliness wash over them.
On the negative side is the performance of Eva Marie Saint, as Eve Kendall, the lover/counterspy of James Mason’s Soviet mole character, Phillip Vandamm. Saint is stiff and wooden, and even less convincing as a romantic lead than many of the other icy blonds that inhabit the Hitchcock universe. Yes, she’s beautiful, second perhaps only to Grace Kelly in the Hitchcockian blond goddess pantheon, but she has absolutely no chemistry with Grant, and when she says her then-risqué lines of flirtation it is almost as if a teenaged girl were trying to give her grandpa a boner.
It works, apparently, for Thornhill reveals that he cannot help but make love to beautiful women, and does so with a straight face to the near total stranger. From any other actor than Cary Grant this would be an example of a sinfully bad piece of dialogue. From Cary Grant, such cockiness seems natural. One must accept that films from this repressed era in Hollywood could not help themselves from shoehorning a romance into a story, but that does not make it a positive. One also wonders if Hitchcock ever saw the range that Saint displayed in her star-making turn in the Elia Kazan directed, and Marlon Brando starring vehicle, On The Waterfront. If he had it must not have occurred to him that a bit of range to her character would have made the film even better.
Article comments
1 - Jonathan Little
I can't say I agree with your assessment of Herrmann's score. The music is classic Herrmann from the Overture to the Finale. How is that opening fandango anything but memorable? It had me hooked immediately the first time I heard it. Then there's the love theme with various different renditions, the Mt. Rushmore suspense music, etc. If you want to hear scores from Herrmann that could honestly be considered "least memorable," you need to check out wonderful films like JOY IN THE MORNING, BLUE DENIM, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, or TENDER IS THE NIGHT.
2 - Rodney Welch
And what in the hell does this mean: "While the cinematography by Robert Burks is solid, there are no eye-popping moments..."
Excuse me? Are you blind? You don't call the crop-duster scene eye-popping? What about the ending on Mount Rushmore? You don't think that's masterful cinematography? What does cinematography mean to you, if anything?
3 - Dan Schneider
Jon- compared to Psycho, or even The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, this score is rather serviceable, at best. Hear a few bars of the Psycho theeme and you know it instantly. Not so here.
Eye popping as in the great landscape cinematography of an Antonioni, the nature shots of a Herzog, the penetrating visuals of an Ozu. No, the crop duster and Rushmore secenes are standard thriller pieces. Do you consider True Lies a great work of cinematography? The difference is the visuals having a meaning aside from the script, and engaging a lasting memory. The sort of chase scenes you describe have been done before and since, and better. Watch a Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd silent and you'll see.
The film is a good popcorn movie, but nothing deep- i.e.- Hitchcock at his finest.
4 - Rodney Welch
There isn't a shot in anything by Antonioni or Ozu that is as memorable as the crop-duster sequence. It is a classic movie moment, sealed in every viewer's brain forever, which in my book means it is eye-popping.
5 - El Bicho
"pre-James Bondian Cold War thriller"
James Bond predates NxNW by six years. C*sino Royale was published in 1953.
6 - Dan Schneider
Rod- gimme a break. There's nothing in NXNW that comes close to the cinematography in L'Eclisse or L'Avventura, much less the bravura ending of The Passenger.
And the end shots at a beach in Late Spring is far deeper and more touching than the plane sequence in NXNW- which was bettered even in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
El- the first Bond film was after NXNW. We're talking film, not books.
7 - Rodney Welch
Dan -- No one remembers any of that shit but geeks. It's impressive, sure, but EVERYONE remembers being gripped by the sequence in North By Northwest. No one whoever sees it will forget it. You cannot say this about the cinematography of Antonioni and Ozu, and I think there are fans of both men who won't recall everything you refer to. I saw Late Spring twice a few months ago, and I don't remember anything about a beach. I trust you that it was in there, but what really stuck with me were the scenes between the father and daughter.
I wouldn't normally admit this lapse, but Colin McGinn's new book The Power of Film gave me permission, since he pointed out how easily viewers tend to forget a movie within days if not hours after it's over.
But I contend no one has ever forgotten the crop-duster sequence. This may not make it on par with the greatest cinematography ever, but it certainly indicates that your refusal to see it as "eye-popping" is just mere disingenuousness.
8 - Dan Schneider
Rod-
Your average movie goer remembers no films earlier than a decade ago. To ask them of Hitchcock is like asking them of Fatty Arbuckle. C'mon, be serious.
Technically, 50% or more of the crop duster sequence was filmed on rear screen projection, so similar scenes in, say, a True Lies are far better.
Given the reality of public forgetfulness, yr points re: Ozu and Antonioni, and Hitchcock have to be taken in context of true cineastes, and no one there will argue that that or any Hitch scene will stick as long as some of the classic Ozu shots- i.e.- the bottle and lighthouse from Floating Weeds, or the end of The Passenger, or the last ten minutes of L'Eclisse.
It's comparing cotton candy to a steak. I recently phoned a friend, and we talked nearly 20 minutes on the end of The Passenger alone. Hitchcock- and some of his films, got a shrug.
So, if you're saying Hitch and his medium were more LCD and pedestrian- I accede, but yr avr viewer today wwill not recall that sequence any more than an Ozu scene.
9 - Dave
I have a question - in the last scene, vanDamme is shown along with the Professor and other policemen. He was not handcuffed and his tone gave the impression that he was on CIA's side. I didn't quite understand what happened. So was he really the villain?
10 - Robert Keller
No, vanDamme is not in handcuffs, but, yes, he's certainly the bad guy.
And Herrmann's score is far from wan; it's among the best ear candy in cinama history. The opening fandango is repeated three times (drunk car ride and Mount Rushmore) with terrific effect.
11 - JJ
Boy, where to start?
Eva Marie Saint was quite good in this.
Young women do like older men (see Harrison Ford), so it didn't seem unusual.
What is highly unusual is finding the word "boner" in a film review... eeks!
Also, wouldn't Eva Marie Saint be a little lower in the "Hitchcockian blond goddess pantheon"???
Well behind Kim Novack and Tippy at least.
The ending shot where Cary pulls Eva Marie Saint up and cuts to the train cabin was a great shot, brilliantly done,
and definitely not "atrocious". Now you're not just nit picking, but getting a little silly.
I agree with other comments about Herrmann's score. The music is truly great work and one of his best.
At this point,
I had to stop reading any further.
12 - xyz
I fully agree with the review. I saw the film because I read somewhere it was one of the best Hitchcock's films. What a mistake. Eve Marie Saint's performance is awfull, the plot is a pandemonium and the cut between the last two scenes is indeed atrocious.